Colonel Thomas Stanley

Colonel Thomas Stanley, painted in 1794, is an early work from the period when Lawrence was rapidly establishing himself as the successor to Reynolds. The military uniform places this in the context of the Revolutionary Wars that had begun in 1793, when many of Lawrence's sitters were serving or preparing for service against France. The portrait's presence in Manchester Art Gallery connects it to Lancashire, the Stanley family's ancestral county.

The military portrait demonstrates Lawrence's early confidence with male sitters, the red coat providing a bold color accent against the dark background. The face is painted with the precise, somewhat more labored handling of Lawrence's earlier period, before he developed the freer brushwork of his maturity.